


Spasm

by Arukou



Series: Words Do Not Deeds Make [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Amputation, Drabble, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not enough comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 18:16:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7542982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arukou/pseuds/Arukou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve promised Tony, promised that he wouldn't let this thing beat him. But sometimes it's hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spasm

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://arukou-arukou.tumblr.com/post/140236502501/im-having-an-emotionally-terrible-day-today-so). 
> 
> Just a short little thing. I swear I'm working on the real sequel. It's 7,000 words long now and nowhere near done. This will make zero sense if you've not read the preceding pieces.

Steve wakes next to Tony and thinks _Something is wrong_. For a moment he can’t place it. The tower is quiet. If anyone’s awake, they’re spending their insomnia doing something he can’t hear. And he hears so much. Tony’s heartbeat, following just a millisecond after the bass thrum of his pacemaker. Air whistling through grates and lungs and drafty cracks that exist no matter how hard Tony tries to engineer them away. The sheets are smooth and cool against his skin, but he feels feverish.

He lays staring at the ceiling for a moment and then turns to put his arm over Tony. There’s nothing there. It comes crashing down on him suddenly. Blood and brick and ash and Bucky and Nat quivering beneath him and gunfire and unbelievable pain in his arm. The phantom of it chases up his shoulder and down his spine and his muscles contract, cramping so tightly tears spring to Steve’s eyes.

He doesn’t want to wake Tony, but his body is drawing tighter and tighter and in desperation he bites his lip, feeling blood well up where his teeth are sharpest. With a crippled lurch, he rolls to his left instead and pushes himself up with his good hand. He can see his calves pinching inward, throbbing and spasming with each beat of his heart. 

Breath hissing fast through his teeth, Steve manages to plant his feet on the floor and heave himself off the bed. His gait is stiff as an old man’s as he shuffles from the room into Tony’s private living room. It’s chilly, with the air conditioner blowing air over his bare shoulders and the massive windows. When the bedroom door safely closes, Steve lets out a groan and nearly falls to his knees. He never cramped like this, even when he was little. He hasn’t told Tony, but he has theories about it. He wonders if maybe it isn’t his healing factor displacing the energy that would be used for his arm into other parts of his body. He hasn’t told _anyone_ about it. He doesn’t want them to know.

Another spasm races up his spine to his shoulder, contracting what remains of his bicep and tricep until his arm is on fire. He tries to rotate the shoulder, to loosen the muscles that are now rebelling against him, but somehow that just makes it worse. More tears spill down his face and he feels so utterly helpless, so completely powerless in a way that has become foreign to him. The serum was supposed to make his body reliable, even when all his other faculties fail him. And now it’s turned against him too. Maybe Steve Rogers was never meant to be whole and healthy. Maybe Erskine disturbed the universe by trying to fix him.

Steve’s not sure when the tears turn from ones of pain to ones of frustration, but he is aware of the sudden, ginger touch at the base of his neck.

“Steve?”

He huffs out a shuddering sob and tries to wipe his face in his ruined shoulder. “Sorry. Did I wake you?” He can’t look back, but he knows Tony’s not fooled.

“JARVIS did. I’m glad he did.”

Just then, another spasm makes Steve’s muscles clench in, and he hears Tony hiss, just seeing it. “Oh god, Steve. No wonder you… Here.”

Tony’s thumbs and fingers are digging into his neck and back suddenly, and for a moment, it hurts even worse, like being shocked by Thor’s lightning. He wants to buck Tony away, to go and nurse his wounds alone where no one can see this weakness. The team doesn’t need to see this. They don’t need to know. But he knows that would hurt Tony even worse, so he remains, teeth bared against the absolute agony of his rebelling muscles.

He doesn’t know how long Tony works over his back, but eventually, Tony urges him down onto his stomach and starts working over his shoulders and arms, his lumbar, his glutes, thighs, and calves. The cramps ease and then die away. Tony talks the whole damn time. “That’s it. Drop your scapula here. There we go. Much better. Man this is a tough knot. Did I tell you about how DUM-E soldered the face plate to the groin plate a few weeks back? JARVIS says it was an accident, but I think DUM-E was saying something about my thinking processes. What do you think? Hey, we should do team breakfast tomorrow. Might be nice, right?”

On and on he goes, his brilliant mind wandering from topic to topic with not even a tangential relation except in the webs of Tony’s own brain. He sees those connections that Steve doesn’t, and somehow, that makes it better. At last, he’s undone. Limp on the couch, stump hanging off the edge and stretching his pec deliciously. Tony’s just as exhausted and he lays out on top of Steve, cheek to cervical vertebrae. 

“Better big guy?” Tony murmurs, press a lily soft kiss to his shoulder blade.

Steve doesn’t have the heart to tell Tony the truth, so he just says. “Yeah. Thanks.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://arukou-arukou.tumblr.com/) for more fanfiction and nerdery.


End file.
